Rebels fire on western districts of the city throughout the day, regime resumes airstrikes in rebel-held east
Rebel fire on a hospital in a government-controlled neighbourhood of Syria’s second city Aleppo killed three women and wounded another 17 people on Tuesday, state media reported.
The rockets hit Al-Dabbeet hospital in the Muhafaza district, state news agency SANA said.
Rebel rocket fire on other government-held neighbourhoods killed another 11 people, it added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels had fired rockets and shells on government-controlled western districts of the city throughout the day.
After a lull through the morning, regime air strikes on rebel-held eastern areas resumed in the afternoon, an AFP correspondent reported. Moscow has faced mounting pressure from Washington to rein in air raids by its Damascus ally after a hospital and three clinics were hit.
More than 250 civilians have been killed in Syria’s second city since April 22 in an upsurge of violence that has prompted a flurry of diplomacy by Russia, the United Nations and the United States to rescue a teetering February truce between the government and non-jihadist rebels.
A child was among those killed in the rebel bombardment, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said. There were some ground clashes during the night along the front line that has divided Aleppo since rebels seized eastern districts of the city in 2012.
UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said the faltering truce in Syria must be “brought back on track” as he held talks in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on ending a fresh upsurge in fighting.
In televised remarks, de Mistura praised the two-month-old truce brokered by Moscow and Washington as a “remarkable achievement” and said the two global powers should help “all of us to make sure that this is brought back on track”.
Russia’s top diplomat for his part said that “there was no alternative to the political settlement of the Syrian crisis,” adding Moscow highly valued Mistura’s efforts to help negotiate an end to a conflict that has killed more than 270,000 people since 2011.
“I am looking forward to a fruitful discussion,” Lavrov added.
The talks in the Russian capital were a last-ditch bid to rescue peace negotiations that have been undermined by the fierce fighting around Aleppo.
The meeting comes after a day of diplomacy in Geneva, where US Secretary of State John Kerry added his weight to efforts to resuscitate the stuttering truce.
middle-east-online.com
